Part 2
I did not sleep that night.
The chair beside Lily’s hospital bed became my whole world. Its plastic arms dug into my elbows. The fluorescent lights hummed above us. Machines whispered and beeped, measuring the fragile rhythm of my daughter’s life while rain kept tapping against the window like fingers asking to be let in.
Lily drifted in and out of consciousness.
Each time her eyes opened, I leaned forward.
“Sweetheart,” I whispered, “don’t try to talk. Just blink if you can hear me.”
Her good eye fluttered once.
I took her hand carefully, afraid even my touch might hurt her.
“You’re safe now.”
The second I said it, I knew it was a lie.
She was alive. She was in a hospital. But safe?
No.
Someone had found her in the dark, broken her jaw in six places, and left her unconscious near the science building like discarded trash. Someone had trusted the rain, the hour, and everyone’s silence to bury what happened.
And maybe they would have succeeded.
If Lily had been anyone else’s daughter.
At 3:12 a.m., a campus police officer finally arrived. His name was Officer Briggs, according to the badge clipped to his belt. He was young, clean-shaven, with tired eyes and a careful way of speaking that made every sentence sound rehearsed.
“Mr. Mercer,” he said, standing just inside the doorway, “I’m sorry about your daughter.”
I looked at him from the chair. “Are you?”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“What do you know?”
He glanced at Lily, then back at me. “We’re treating this as an assault. She was discovered at approximately 10:38 p.m. near the east walkway behind Hartwell Science Hall.”
“Who found her?”
“One of our night security guards.”
“Name?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation told me more than his answer would have.
“Officer,” I said quietly, “my daughter is lying there with her face wired together. Do not make me ask twice.”
He swallowed. “Gary Holt.”
“Where is he?”
“Off duty now.”
“Convenient.”
Briggs stiffened. “Sir, I understand you’re upset.”
“No,” I said, standing. “You don’t.”
He took half a step back.
It wasn’t fear exactly. It was instinct. I had seen it in men overseas when they realized the person across from them was no longer speaking from emotion, but from training.
“What cameras cover that walkway?” I asked.
“We’re reviewing footage.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
His jaw tightened. “There are cameras on the science building entrance, the maintenance lot, and the north pedestrian path.”
“And?”
“And there was heavy rain. Visibility was poor.”
I stared at him.
Rain did not erase footage.
Rain did not silence witnesses.
Rain did not fracture a girl’s jaw six times.
“Has anyone from the university contacted me?” I asked.
“They will.”
“When?”
“I can’t speak for administration.”
“Then speak for yourself. Who was with her tonight?”